Problem description:

What is the new public management movement? What is the content of the new public management theory?

Analysis:

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a huge wave of administrative reform was set off around the world. In the west, this administrative reform movement is regarded as a "new public management movement" to "reshape the public sector" and "rebuild the public sector".

Second, the theoretical and practical roots of the rise of the "new public management movement"

The traditional public management mode is a great progress compared with the previous management. Therefore, since its emergence, it has gradually become the basic mode of public administration in most countries in the world. However, with the passage of time and the development of society, the theory and practice in the field of public management have undergone fundamental changes, which provided a profound theoretical and practical basis for the rise of the "new public management movement" at the end of the 20th century.

1, the inherent theoretical defects of the traditional public administration model are increasingly prominent. The traditional theory of public administration came into being at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century. The biggest difference between it and the previous management theory is that it is based on two new theories: one is the "political and administrative dichotomy" theory put forward by Woodrow Wilson and systematized by Goodnow; The other is the theory of "bureaucracy" put forward by Max Weber. The traditional public administration theory based on these two theories holds that politics and administration can be separated. In the case of dichotomy, the main task of public administration is how to effectively implement established policies or achieve established goals. Issues related to politics and policies belong to the category of political science. Politics should not interfere with administration, which is a scientific issue. It can and should remain value-neutral and aim at pursuing economy and efficiency. Civil servants should remain politically neutral, and their task is only to faithfully and effectively implement the policies formulated by political officials. Accordingly, a set of scientific and optimal management principles can be established. The official system operates according to these organizational principles, excluding any personal emotional factors, and is dominated by rewards and punishments like a donkey, so that the administrative management can achieve a high degree of "rationalization" and the management of * * * can achieve the maximum effect with the minimum investment. In fact, as early as shortly after the formation of traditional public administration theory, the two theoretical bases on which it is based have been severely criticized by behaviorism and interpersonal school in political science. Administrative scholars Robert Dahl and Waldo both pointed out that the dichotomy between politics and administration put forward by Wilson is actually impossible. The unreality of the traditional administrative model lies in the inevitable correlation between politics and administration, and public administration without any value judgment is just a myth. Peters, an administrative scholar, also pointed out: "Administration and policy are not separate phenomena, but interrelated. Whether by subjective means or objective means, the attributes of the administrative system will affect the policy output of the political system. " Today, most scholars have reached a * * * understanding on this issue. Although some practical workers still stubbornly adhere to the dichotomy, the traditional administrative model must rely on a theory that cannot be established and has long been considered impossible to achieve, at least indicating that there must be some problems in this model. Facing Weber's "bureaucracy" theory. Scholars also believe that bureaucracy is bound to conflict with democracy because of its formal rationality, opacity, rigid organization and strict hierarchy. In fact, Weber himself only regards bureaucracy as an ideal state. In his view, the perfection of bureaucratic organization will inevitably make people enter the "iron cage". "Where the administrative management is completely bureaucratic, the kind of power relationship established is actually indestructible." To deal with the developed bureaucratic machine, ordinary individuals, officials in bureaucratic institutions and even rulers with the highest power are actually powerless. Obviously, all this is not what modern people yearn for. In addition, the application of bureaucracy in practice is somewhat different from Weber's idea, especially the rigidity caused by the practice of bureaucracy in personnel system is even worse than Weber's idea, but its elitism characteristics are far from Weber's idea, which directly leads to the reduction of system efficiency. These theories fundamentally shake the theoretical basis on which traditional public administration depends.

2. The traditional public administration model has been more and more widely impacted in practice. Since the early 1980s, the scale and capacity of the public sector have been under attack. It is generally believed that the "scale" of * * * is too large and wastes too many scarce resources. At present, cutting funds is almost a common phenomenon. For example, in Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden and other countries, public services have traditionally been large-scale, but now the role of the public sector has declined. Secondly, the "scope" of * * * has also caused controversy. Some people think that * * * is involved in too many activities, and many of them can have other alternatives. In response to this view, many activities previously carried out by * * * began to shift to the private sector. In addition, * * *' s "method" has also been criticized. More and more people think that bureaucratic methods will inevitably lead to no improvement and inefficiency. If * * * must engage in certain activities, it is also necessary to seek other organizational methods besides bureaucracy. The obvious result of attacking the scale, scope and methods of the public sector is to reduce and reform its management methods.

3. The change of economic theory poses a severe challenge to the traditional public administration model. After World War II, western countries generally adopted Keynesian ideas and intervened in social life in an all-round way. When the "visible hand" intervened in the market and achieved great success, the "* * * failure" accompanied by "market failure" was equally obvious. On the one hand, * * * undertakes more and more management tasks for the society and the market, and becomes "all-powerful * * *"; On the other hand, the internal bureaucracy of * * * is expanding, the efficiency is low, and the financial expenditure is expanding day by day, so the management of * * * is facing unprecedented challenges. It is in this context that the theory of public choice, which emphasizes liberalism and market orientation, has sprung up. As Samuelson, an economist, pointed out, "The theory of public choice studies the problem of * * * failure when state intervention cannot improve economic efficiency or income distribution is unfair". In 1970s, the theory of public choice formally intervened in the field of "public management" and established a set of its own theories. Scholars of public choice theory use "methodological individualism" to study the behavior of bureaucracy. They believe that human society consists of two markets, one is the economic market and the other is the political market. The same person is active in these two markets, which is both selfish and rational. In other words, public officials, like ordinary citizens, aim at maximizing their own interests. For * * *, due to the scattered and inseparable ownership of the people, there is no incentive to supervise it, and there is no market competition mechanism to effectively restrict it. Therefore, egoistic bureaucrats can ignore social welfare and focus on pursuing personal power, fame and fortune, which will eventually lead to inefficiency. Based on this understanding, the public * * * selection theory holds that it is * * * rather than the market that fails. To solve the crisis of public management, we should reduce the functions of * * * and let the more efficient market regulate the supply of goods and services as much as possible, so as to realize the most efficient resource allocation. They also believe that the traditional unified supervision and supervision emphasized by public administration greatly inhibits the creativity of public institutions and civil servants and falls into formalization and rigidity; The * * * management and service, which represents the will of the country, ignores the diversity of public safety and services and is insensitive to market signals and consumer demand, which is no longer suitable for the needs of today's world. It is "the * * * organizational model of industrial society" and "19th century administrative technology". Therefore, they believe that the market can replace politics or administration as the dominant mechanism for governing society. Only by taking "economic efficiency" as the highest standard and through the role of the "invisible hand" of the market can many self-interested individuals come together and increase social well-being. In a word, the theory of public choice provides a theoretical basis for the rise of the new public management movement.

4. The knowledge economy and the acceleration of economic globalization caused by it make * * * face more severe competition of "efficiency" and "legitimacy". Since 1990s, the rise of knowledge-based economy has accelerated the process of global economic integration and promoted the level of global economic integration. With the continuous improvement of global economic integration, the era of global "efficiency" level competition has become a reality. The era of single vertical reference between * * * performance and * * * legitimacy has come to an end, and the era when people in different societies choose * * * just as they choose careers and work units has quietly come. The competition of * * * governance ability and level, just like the competition between different enterprises, has been and will be rapidly launched in a larger scope and among different * * * at the beginning of 2 1 century. The fate of any country will depend on its competitiveness in the global political and economic arena and its ability to deal with global problems; All countries must be soberly aware that only by sparing no effort to find strategies and tactics to protect and promote their own interests in global competition and effectively promote the actual improvement of their own welfare can they gain the recognition and support of their own people; * * * Efficiency and legitimacy can no longer be convincingly recognized from the vertical comparison of domestic history, and historical reasons are no longer an excuse for people to recognize that social welfare is inferior to other countries. As a result of the global competition between "* * * efficiency" and "* * * legitimacy", those who are slow or unwilling to respond to social demands and wishes will inevitably face a crisis of authority, trust and legitimacy. Global economic integration, especially the rise of knowledge economy, puts forward higher requirements for the efficiency of * * *. In order to meet this challenge, it will undoubtedly become a wise choice for all countries to reconstruct and reshape the governance system and model.

In short, with the changes of the times and the development of theory, the traditional public administration model has fallen into a "besieged situation" in the voice of theoretical and practical doubts. More and more people realize that the traditional administrative management model can no longer reflect the extensive, managerial and decision-making roles that modern public services need to assume. It is more a form of negative control, not focusing on providing effective incentives for improving efficiency, but focusing on how to avoid making mistakes. It is in this theoretical and realistic background that the "new public management movement" based on economics and private management theory dramatically stepped onto the historical stage of public management and triggered a new revolution in the field of public management.

Third, the theoretical implication and prospect of the rise of the "new public management movement"

It is still too early to make a comprehensive evaluation of the "new public management movement" itself, because it is still in the complex process of exploration and development. However, the practice of the "new public management movement" has shown great differences from the traditional public management model, such as paying more attention to management performance and efficiency, market power, flexibility rather than rigidity of management, the relevant political environment for public sector operation and the application of private sector management methods in the public sector. The rise of the "new public management movement", especially its new features and development trend, clearly reminds the world that a brand-new management model is gradually taking shape in the field of public management. In the current reform practice, although * * * continues to assume the role of the main body of the movement for operational needs, the development trend of this reform movement undoubtedly contains the implication of a comprehensive review of the traditional public administration model since modern times.

Of course, any change process will have beneficiaries and losers. The "new public management movement" draws nutrition from the belief in market forces and the "consumer orientation" of modern enterprises, and shows its vitality in some large-scale practices, but it also accumulates many conceptual contradictions and conflicts. For example, the similarities and differences between public institutions and private enterprises derived from "entrepreneur * * *" and "enterprise * * *"; How to avoid the influence of politics and values when politicians sign performance contracts with senior civil servants and their evaluation; How to coordinate the relationship between * * * performance when "three E"-economy, efficiency, benefit or effect is taken as the evaluation standard; The "three E" criteria for evaluating the policy of replacing economy with shares are compared, and so on. These contradictions and problems will be the "new public management movement" that needs to be seriously faced and effectively solved in the future.

But in any case, although the "new public * * * management movement" is still hard to explore and has not yet formed a fixed and unified model, although the "new public * * * management movement" itself is far from perfect and there are still many criticisms and unquestionable problems, the traditional public * * * administrative model that prevailed in most countries in the 20th century is undoubtedly gone forever.